Author: Alan Creedy

The Non Question: Why Are Funerals So Expensive?

Written by Alan Creedy on September 24, 2012. Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 9 Comments on The Non Question: Why Are Funerals So Expensive?

This question and its brother: “How much does a funeral cost?” Are non questions. When we attempt to answer them directly with rational logical explanations we only end up annoying most people. Especially if we weigh them down with a litany of hours, cost of having a building and the time we waste being ready to take their call.

S0, how do we respond to these questions when they are posed? I use the word respond instead of answer because respond is what we should do. But first a little background.

During the last 30 years funerals have morphed from being a simple product (where the only real decision was selecting a casket) to a complex product. That is complex as opposed to complicated. (another one of those Creedyesque nuances). Complex as applied to products and services is actually a well-defined concept among sales and marketing experts. I don’t know who has missed this, the advertising agencies specializing in our industry or the funeral professional. Probably both. Our continued belief that we are a simple product / service is a large part of why we have so much trouble engaging the public. But I digress…

Among the attributes of complex products and services are that they are expensive and buyers have an inadequate frame of reference from which to assess value. Complex services also involve buyer resistance and, often, multiple decision makers. But most important among the attributes of complex products is this one which is entirely new to our paradigm:

In addition to the age old “why buy from you?” it includes “why buy at all?”

What people, then, are really asking is not about cost. It is:

“Why have a funeral at all?”

How to respond

Again, we should respond instead of react or defend. And the first thing to do is offer a challenge. Something the inquirer has to react or respond to.

As products and / or services become more complex the natural tendency of people is to look for ways to reduce that complexity and its attendant risk. Opting out altogether is one way of doing that. But in the majority of cases that is not what people really want.

It turns out that what people want is for someone to offer them a new and unique perspective and then teach them how that perspective best fits their real need.

When I am asked this question I redirect the conversation by challenging my inquirer. In this case I might say: “Actually, when you think about it, it’s surprising funerals aren’t more expensive than they are.”

Typically, people give me that “tell me more” look. So, I will continue with something like:

“Well, honoring a loved one is a pretty important thing in most peoples lives and you only get to do it once, right? It takes a special skill to be able to pull that off without notice in 3 or 4 days time and be effective at it.”

Generally, that will get me into a conversation. Sometimes it’s a “tell me more” conversation and sometimes it’s something else like: “I’d just as soon skip the whole thing”. Either way I am prepared because my response to either is pretty much the same:

“What I find when people really get a chance to talk about it…I mean after they get over the whole ‘creepy’ thing…is that they really do want to be remembered and they have something to say. If you go back over 4,000 years of human history we have always had this need and always had designated people who helped us with it.

My observation is when people take the easy way out and do nothing they aren’t giving people a chance to do what’s normal like gathering and comforting. When we are under any kind of stress we need other people around and we need physical touch and reassurance. Otherwise we could get stuck in our sadness and despair.

So, It may sound creepy but it really isn’t. It’s hard work helping people with their sorrow come to a better place…to find release. Wouldn’t that be what you would want for those you leave behind…release and transformation and not being forgotten I mean?”

And then, of course, I shut up because 99 times out of 100 I have opened the gates and they want to talk and all I have to do is listen and explore options.

Ain’t so hard really. You just have to make certain assumptions that I think a lot of practitioners aren’t making any more.

The need to gather and comfort and offer physical reassurance is a normal and natural human need
The need to designate someone in society to coordinate that activity is time honored
If people opt out their needs aren’t met and…MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL
PEOPLE REALLY REALLY DO WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT…WHEN THEY FEEL SAFE.

Video: If You Want A High Performing Organization Are You Measuring The Right Things?

Written by Alan Creedy on September 3, 2012. Posted in Video Gallery, The Creedy Commentary, The Video Blog, Video. 1 Comment on Video: If You Want A High Performing Organization Are You Measuring The Right Things?

My hero, Peter Drucker, believed:

“For the organization to perform to a high standard, its members must believe that what it is doing is, in the last analysis, the one contribution to community and society on which all others depend.”

For more than 30 years I have believed that DeathCare makes just such a contribution. This belief makes it, in my mind, a noble profession and it is the specific reason I have chosen to plant my career flag in it. I am not persuaded otherwise by the frequent attacks made on it by outsiders. Nor am I discouraged by the knowledge that it hosts any number of ignoble characters.

For the last several weeks I have been discussing leadership. There is a disturbing absence of positive leadership in our profession. It concerns me that the current emphasis on metrics, albeit necessary for the management of the business, threatens to turn us into shop foremen instead of leaders by rewarding the mundane over the essential. after all:

“you manage a business, you lead people”

You can prove this to yourself. Who are the heroes in your firm?

The arrangers with the highest average sale?
Those who create repeat customers?
Those who win over new customers among the guests attending services?

Perhaps they are the same. If so you are lucky.

When I was President of Brown-Wynne Funeral Homes some of our heroes, or should I say Heroines, didn’t have a license. Our focus was different then. We weren’t as concerned about profit-per-customer. We had a longer and bigger horizon in mind. A vision that is, in my opinion more sustainable than the direction our current metric obsession has the potential to take us. Maybe that’s why we enjoyed a 70+% market share.

A couple of comments in this video jumped out at me:

“…are we spending our lives mired in measuring the mundane.”
“We don’t have to choose between inspired employees and sizable profits, we can have both. In fact, inspired employees quite often help make sizable profits.”

One last point before you view this video: the point is made that “When the only tool you have is a hammer everything begins to look like a nail.” I will paraphrase his use of this as follows:

“If the Casket has been our Hammer…then our nail has been the early 20th century model of success.”

What I would do:

First, I would advise you to take an introspective step. If you are truly a “command and control” person, ignore this post. Stay the way you are. Keep your nose in your Excel worksheets. This is not for you.

If you really want your business on the right track I would share this with my key people first. We know from research that consumers see us as dark, lonely mysterious places. What would it be like if we could overcome that?

Then I would view the video together and ask the questions he has asked. How, why, who.

Finally, I would commit to weekly meetings to pursue this agenda.

Final Thought:

DeathCare is on the cusp, like so many other industries and professions, of transformational reinvention. Many practitioners will mistake dressing up what we have to sell as reinvention. It is not. For us to succeed means we must leave the place we are and become something that may surprise even us. We must transform the image consumers have of us so that they see us as the place they can go for solutions to their problem.

A Model For Change Within Your Organization

Written by Alan Creedy on August 27, 2012. Posted in Video Gallery, The Creedy Commentary, The Video Blog, Video. No Comments on A Model For Change Within Your Organization

Here is an interesting perspective on implementing change within your own organization.

Most funeral homes and cemeteries are at level III. One or two are possibly at level IV. To my knowledge, I have never been exposed to a level V.

Where Do You Fit on The Scale?

Will it be your tribe that changes Funeral Service For Your Community?

The Simpler The Strategy The More Likely The Success

Written by Alan Creedy on August 20, 2012. Posted in Video Gallery, The Creedy Commentary, The Video Blog, Video. 3 Comments on The Simpler The Strategy The More Likely The Success

Why do DeathCare Practitioners get these “Deer In The Headlight” looks when you use the word “Strategy” in their presence?

I think it’s partly because they don’t really know where to start what can really be a pretty simple activity. And, besides, somebody keeps changing the starting point every darn day.

If you attend enough conventions and seminars you can’t help but be aware we have too many options and not enough clarity.

Whenever confusion and indecisiveness set in a good coach will tell you to go back to basics and start over. And that is what most practitioners need to do. After all doing nothing in a rapidly changing business environment is the same as doing something except it’s riskier. Kind of like forgetting to get out of the way when a car is about to run you down.

The truth is: Developing a simple but doable strategy for your future isn’t as complicated as you might think.

See below for a short video on how really simple strategy can be

You don’t always need a complicated SWOT analysis or offsite retreat. Often by focusing on key essentials you can figure out where you need to go and get there a lot faster.

As I watched this video I couldn’t help think of Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan. These were leaders who took daunting challenges and reduced them to simple goals that everyone understood and could get behind. Here is how I would phrase it if I were to address a funeral home staff:

“I don’t have to tell you that today’s family isn’t like the families we USED to serve. (gain consensus)

We either need to adapt or get left behind. And if we get left behind we get left out. And I didn’t sign up for that and I don’t think you did either. I am not going to tell you I have all the answers but I believe we can find the answers if we are willing to make the effort and suffer the inevitable mistake along the way. I am choosing to adapt. (take a leadership stand)

If you’re with me let’s start focusing on our key drivers. (start doing something)

If you’re not we need your support in the day-to-day operations until you can find another job…and that means you too dad. (clarify the culture)”

Oh, and I would probably fire the “Ten Call Tyrant” on the spot…just to save time. He’ll leave anyway.

To Buy a reprint of Donald Sull’s Article “Simple Rules For A Complex World” Click Here

Lessons On Leadership: Peak Performance From Adequate People

Written by Alan Creedy on August 14, 2012. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, The Video Blog, Video, Video Gallery. 4 Comments on Lessons On Leadership: Peak Performance From Adequate People

Peter Drucker was the first to draw a parallel between Leadership and Orchestra Conductors when he observed:

“A great orchestra is not composed of great musicians but of adequate ones who produce at their peak. [A great conductor] has to make productive what he has…the players are nearly unchangeable. So it is the conductor’s people skills that make the difference.”

What makes this particularly applicable to DeathCare is that our workers are not factory line workers as current trends in funeral home supervision and management are beginning to treat them. They are knowledge workers and in this same essay Drucker went on to say:

“The critical feature of a knowledge workforce is that its workers are not labor, they are capital.”

The success of any business is in how it invests its capital and if our workforce is our capital and we manage them like machines in a knowledge environment we are likely to lose. If, instead like the great conductors in this video, we begin to create the environment, the structure and the mechanisms that enable adequate people to continuously operate at their peak then we will realize a 100-fold return on our investment.
But, I fear this video may be too subtle for many in the profession to fully grasp what Mr. Talgam is trying to convey. In essence, his point about enabling the players to tell their own story and thereby become partners is really about building a team of collaborators around a central purpose and the conductor being a team leader.

Some Things To Note As You Watch:

Itay Talgam takes us through the entire progression of management as it develops from the “micro-manager” as represented by Riccardo Muti to what Jim Collins (author of the book: “Good To Great”) refers to as a LEVEL V leader as represented by Leonard Bernstein.

Note the fate of Riccardo Muti

This video is 20 minutes and you may be tempted to stop but HERE IS WHAT I REALLY WANT YOU TO DO:

As you watch the video and as Talgam describes the leadership style of each conductor try and decide where you fit. If you are an employee, what is your bosses style?

“[A conductor’s] happiness does not come from only his own story and his joy of the music. The joy is about enabling other people’s stories to be heard at the same time.” (Itay Talgam)

How Leonard Bernstein managed to get adequate people to perform at their peak:

My bet is that he did not overpay people. In fact, compensation probably didn’t have much to do with it. But I do believe the following components were key factors:

He set clear expectations
He set personal goals for each player and enabled them to develop
He gave regular and speedy feedback
He worked one-on-one and in teams
He did not accept mediocrity and would not let individuals accept it either
Everyone knew how they contributed and they were important to the team
Everyone knew they were cared about
He took obvious pleasure in THEIR success

Final thought: Can you imagine the sublime ecstasy Mr. Bernstein experiences in enabling ADEQUATE PEOPLE to accomplish a SUPERIOR PERFORMANCE.

THAT IS A LEVEL V LEADER.

If you want to know what a LEVEL V leader is then take another 2 1/2 minutes and watch this last video

You Must Be Present To Win

Written by Alan Creedy on August 13, 2012. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, Leadership. No Comments on You Must Be Present To Win

In the near future the difference between winning and losing in DeathCare will be a result of one factor: LEADERSHIP. Yet many owners and general managers are confusing supervision with leadership and are in danger of turning themselves into nothing more than shop foremen.

Too many funeral home owners blame their staff for the lack of progress in their business. Yes the staff can often a barrier to progress. But, frankly it is really not their fault. It is the fault of the passive aggressive cultures that prevail in this profession…including and probably most especially the owners.

A Dysfunctional Culture is something YOU allow because of your cowardice or laziness not because you can’t change it.

What is a passive aggressive culture? In a classic article titled The Passive Aggressive Organization it is defined as:

“… a place where more energy is put into thwarting things than starting them, but in the nicest way.”

What does this mean?

Where does the blame lie? The list is long…and in light of the urgency of our problems mostly meaningless. For now let’s just say that there are few, if any, good leadership models in the profession. Most owners and managers confuse supervision with leadership. And the recent trend toward installing staff performance systems underscores this in spades. Yes, these systems are necessary in any business. After all would a ship leave port without a compass? But the lack of true leadership skills ends up turning owners and general managers into shop foremen and the model begins to look too much like a manufacturing plant than a service profession.

What is the difference between supervision and leadership?

Think of it this way:

You Manage A Business…

You Lead People.

Supervision is a management function and much easier to grasp because you measure, track and compare. How was Joe’s average sale vs. Bill’s? How much time does Jill take to make arrangements vs. Doug? What is the Bob’s family satisfaction score compared to John’s? Then, of course, you can hold it over people’s heads. Supervision is very useful when working with people who don’t have to think (or shouldn’t) and when you need them to focus on components of a task rather than the bigger picture. But supervision doesn’t motivate. Supervision doesn’t engage and it certainly doesn’t build loyalty

Leadership, on the other hand, is much harder work…and riskier too. It means you have to be aware of where you are going as much or more as where you are. It means that you have to be conscious of and teach and defend slippery things like core values and brand integrity. You have to build character and give latitude for autonomous decision making because people know what is expected no matter what the odd circumstance. It means YOU must be responsible for:

Making the Main Thing The Main Thing

Which means you have to know what the MAIN THING is AND you HAVE TO BE THERE. Not just in your office but with the people…Observing, Coaching, Fixing, Guiding, Changing, Planning…AND OCCASIONALLY CONFRONTING.

Not many years ago a senior executive with one of the major casket companies asked me what I thought most funeral home owners wanted. Without thinking I heard myself say,

“They want not to be there.”

Where did that come from?

I was totally surprised and, at first, he was confused. But as I thought about it I realized that I had observed such consistent behavior among owners across so many firms that I naturally drew the conclusion that their preference would be to be someplace else.

Unfortunately,

GOOD LEADERSHIP IN SMALL BUSINESS

REQUIRES YOU TO BE PRESENT TO WIN

The Good News

Leadership…true leadership…is something you learn through experience and mentoring. In fact, it is the part of my funeral home consulting practice I enjoy the most. Leaders grow into the position. They are not born.

Leading a healthy culture is not only much more fun FOR EVERYONE, but it creates a significant competitive advantage in the market place as well.

TUNE IN TOMORROW. I HAVE A VERY SPECIAL TREAT: A VIVID ILLUSTRATION THAT WILL DEMONSTRATE THE DIFFER-ENCE BETWEEN BEING A SUPERVISOR AND A LEADER.

Licensing Laws: Barrier To Survival

Written by Alan Creedy on August 6, 2012. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, Leadership. 13 Comments on Licensing Laws: Barrier To Survival

I feel like maybe I have backed myself into a corner.

Price-Led-Costing

A simple concept; but for an industry steeped in generations of pricing from exactly the opposite perspective and whose most respected financial advisors continue to advocate cost-led-pricing this is bound to be a real challenge. To enable you, dear reader, to flip the switch in a brief blog may be impossible but at least I can get you thinking. After all that’s what I want you to do: Think

Peter Drucker believed, and so do I, that every three years every activity, every product, every service, every policy, every vendor, every strategy of your business should be screened against a simple question:

If we weren’t already doing this would we be going into it now?

He believed that without systematic and purposeful abandonment, an organization will be overtaken by events. AND THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING TO DEATHCARE!

Price-Led-Costing is actually about more than pricing. It is truly a strategy, combining pricing and marketing with what has become known as “Blue Ocean” Strategy. In other words:

Focus Only On Those Things Customers Value Most and Set a Fair Price For It.

This week’s Creedy Roundup Features a great video entitled “When To Disappoint Your Customers” that speaks to this point. So go there by clicking the icon at the left and come right back.

Last week I used NewComer Funeral Homes as an illustration which confused several readers. Yes, they look like a discounter and they use price advertising to get the public’s attention but study their price list and it’s a different story. Now think SouthWest Airlines another great Price-Led-Costing example. Set a fair price and control your margins to drive a profit. There are, in fact, a few lone wolves in funeral service who do that. I used one example last week. I bet you know of a few more. The fancy dancy high price firms look down on them but I bet if you looked at their financials you wouldn’t be so quick to judge.

My challenge right now is to convey this to you in a one-way written format when it is only effectively communicated in a dialogue because, for you to successfully make this transition will require you to let go of some deeply entrenched paradigms that many of you have never even thought about. SO LET’S TRY THIS:

I will tip some of your sacred cows if you will take the time in the comments section to engage in a dialogue with me. There are a whole lot more sacred cows than this. Many are situational relating only to a specific firm. This is just a sampling to give you an uneasy feeling of the challenge facing us. Challenge me and I will challenge you back. Everyone will benefit, including me.

Sacred Cows and other Barriers to Success

What is your ratio of licensees to calls? Last I looked the industry standard was well below 100. Why? I know your answers because you have told me. I am not satisfied. You tell me it’s what families want. What I hear is that you confuse a license with competence. And / or you have licensees doing non-licensee work. Progressive hospitals have solved the nursing shortage by assigning non-nurse work to well trained non-nurses. The result: fewer nurses who are paid more but lower overall payroll, happier nurses and happier patients. Funeral homes would find the same.

Why do you need a license to make funeral arrangements? There is no consistent formal training for it anywhere? Despite their protestations to the contrary, most licensees aren’t that good at it. More than a few respected funeral homes have acknowledged that their preneed staff does a better job. Besides smaller funeral homes are often forced to break the law when they get busy by having mom (who doesn’t have a license and who is better at it anyway) make arrangements.

Why do you need to send 3 licensees to the cemetery?

My state requires that each licensed establishment have a prep room even if you centralize the service and never use it. Why does a branch facility have to be a licensed establishment?

Why do you need a fixed pew chapel? Why do you need a selection room? Why do you need to trade cars every 3 years?

Are you overserving your customers? Are all those extras you are cramming into every service paying off with increased volume or are you working harder for the same profit? As our profession goes through this transformative stage in its history we are doing what Drucker refers to as “patching”. We are trying to dress up what we are used to selling hoping people will see value. This leaves us vulnerable to the SouthWest Airline strategy that focuses on what people value ignores the frills and prices accordingly. See video by Steve McKee on Narrowing Your Focus.

If a Price-Led-Cost player like NewComer entered your market would you be vulnerable? If your answer is yes to this question and you were strongly convicted that the earlier sacred cows were important to your success then you are not as convicted as you think you are.

Why are you spending so much time and money on your selection room and none on staff training?

Why do we have to pay cousin Chris the same wage we pay the company President when she doesn’t even come to work?

As I said these are just a few of the questions that need to be asked. There are more. In the process I have probably made a few of you a little frustrated with me. That’s how it works. If you aren’t willing to experience a little frustration…if you just hope by dressing up what you already have you can survive…then I can’t help you. I am not pointing fingers or judging. I am only asking questions that need asking.

Disclaimer

I have learned I am easily misunderstood so in an effort to be as clear as possible I am including the following chart.

P.S. I deliberately made that last point. It’s actually in this article but it’s deeply buried. This is a topic tied directly to the issue of our addiction to cost-led-pricing. Current trends in management practices place greater emphasis on supervision than leadership. The void of leadership skill in this profession is a critical factor. So, I will leave it to later.

Now, it’s your turn. Challenge me! Double-dog dare-ya. The future winners in funeral service will be price-led-costers. So, let’s start talking about it now.

P.P.S. Those of you who think you can protect yourself in the legislature, be careful. For instance, Why does a branch have to be a licensed establishment? It doesn’t. Some practitioners reading this will want to try and require funeral homes to always have their facilities licensed. I can already think of organizations who have their sites on us that have the facilities, are already performing services, are not licensed and that you cannot legislate out of the business. That game has never saved you in the past it won’t save you now.

Building A Competitive Fortress Through Your Pricing Strategy

Written by Alan Creedy on July 31, 2012. Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 9 Comments on Building A Competitive Fortress Through Your Pricing Strategy

Last week I addressed our broken pricing model referred to as Cost-Led-Pricing. Apropos of everything this article came to my attention

Tough times add hardship to heartache: More families ask for help paying for funerals

underscoring the problem created by our outdated pricing strategy and causing me to wonder if maybe we won’t need to eventually reintroduce Burial Associations.

Before I introduce the alternative to cost-led-pricing some discussion is warranted. This will not be an easy transition for most of you. In fact, it will take sacrifice for many. But it is the right thing to do if you want to preserve your business and not only remain relevant but increase your relevance and dominance in your community.

Where Cost-Led Pricing is a relatively easy approach to pricing ignoring the consumer and the need to seek improved efficiencies and continually contain costs this alternative strategy is complicated and will require discipline. The payoff is simple...especially in an industry so dominated by the old outmoded strategy: Firms that successfully make this transition will survive and ultimately dominate their market for the long term.

To underscore this a story is in order

Recently, I was working as a funeral home consultant with a firm serving in excess of 540 calls. Over some 40+ years the second generation owner had built the firm from something in the neighborhood of 50 calls.

The only remarkable features of this firm were the genuine caring and sincerity of the owner. The adjectives I would use to describe him are humble, quiet, gentle and kind. The facility was nice but only adequate. You would not be embarrassed to use it but it was not the “Taj Mahal” type that has become popular of late. The fleet was also adequate. The staff was well trained and, like the owner, kind and caring. Although actively thinking about it, they were not yet into receptions, dove releases and the like.

OK, you say, so what. Well, the rest of the story is that recently this gentleman’s market had been invaded by one of this country’s most aggressive funeral homes. I know this company well and they never fail. They bought a local facility with the express purpose of putting my client out of business. Several years later my client had quietly handed this firm their hat and run them out of town.

What Happened?

Like you I had to know. So, I started asking. My client didn’t sit on his heels but he didn’t really do anything dramatic either. No big ad campaigns. No aggressive preneed. Just “steady as you go.”

Then one day as I was reviewing his customer contracts I realized how he had become the dominant factor in his community by a factor of 2.5:1 and run this other firm out of town. I had seen his strategy a few times before but not very often and whenever I have seen it I also see a veritable competitive fortress and a financially brick-solid company.

My client and a handful of other firms in the country, without being sophisticated or going to MBA school, practiced the alternative to Cost-Led-Pricing…

Price-Led-Costing.

He set fair prices (note, and this is very important, I said fair not low) and controlled costs to drive a profit. He does not price advertise.

This strategy puts the consumer at the head of the table and somehow they know it intuitively.

While he did not invent it Sam Walton of Walmart popularized this strategy and over the last 40 years most consumer facing industries have successfully deployed it in one form or another.

Price-Led-Costing determines a price first. A price is selected at which the consumer feels the value and the product / service are roughly equivalent. Then costs are controlled in order to drive a profit at that price. The NewComer Funeral Homes are an example of Price-Led-Costing as a formal Strategy. This is not the same as a Discount strategy like a Cremation Society

DANGER

If you are thinking at all you can see that transitioning to this strategy is going to take some pretty dramatic steps. For today simply let me make a few points:

Decide to make the transition a process over time
Begin by focusing on cutting costs
Decide if you have the stomach for it (there will be pain and reward)
DO NOT CONFUSE Price-Led-Costing with discount pricing it is as different as night and day

Next Week:

I will play the heretic in challenging some of your paradigms as you begin thinking about cost containment in an article entitled: Licensing Laws–Barrier To Survival

This Blog Is Interrupted For Something Much More Important

Written by Alan Creedy on July 30, 2012. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, General Topics. 5 Comments on This Blog Is Interrupted For Something Much More Important

I know you are busy but YOU HAVE TO READ THIS! If you want to know what our future is about then I want to share a key example. Something that began just a few years ago and is now starting to pop up with a frequency that makes it into a trend. A trend now being picked up by major media. Something that will help us reengage that part of the market we have been losing.

My thanks to The Funeral Service Insider for bringing this to my attention by posting a link to the Forbes article on their Facebook Page.

SO STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND CHECK THIS OUT.

Why Is This Important?

Because this is not a “feel good” public service move by print media. This is a way newspapers believe will get them back into the paid obit game. If they succeed it will preempt you. So, you need to be in front of it not behind it. This is a great opportunity for a great PR move that will help you Reinvent Your Image.

Forbes magazine (indicates national press interest) recently published an article about an odd event that occurred at The Toronto Star in March of this year entitled But Don’t Go there Yet unless you intend to come back here!

The Incredible Story of Why A Newspaper Sent 15 Reporters To Cover The Funeral Of An Ordinary 55-Year-Old Woman

I have something to tell you. Here is an excerpt from the Forbes article:

“Sometimes an ordinary life is completely extraordinary — and hearing about it stops you dead in your tracks and makes you reflect about yours.

A story first appeared in the Toronto Star in March that I only just heard about through a tweet last week.

Imagine picking up your local newspaper and seeing a 4,000 word essay — beautifully written by 15 reporters no less — on the life of a recently deceased 55-year-old woman.

But, instead of the woman being a head of state, a princess, or a celebrity, this story is about a nobody. It’s the nobodies who fill the obituaries every day that we never pay attention to.

In fact, this was a woman who the primary author of the story, Catherine Porter, hadn’t heard about until one month prior to the story running, when she randomly came across her obituary when reading the paper casually.

The obituary was for a woman named Shelagh Gordon. She never married. For a time she sold wine, but was then laid off. She got a job selling ads in a condo magazine, thanks to her sister. She took anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication. She texted her family often and checked her Facebook messages all the time. She also referred to herself as a “freak.”

Why did a newspaper decide to pull 15 reporters aside to then do 4,000 words, exploring the boring life of such an insignificant person? Because, in such a random and fluky way, they found an amazing life that had never been noticed before by anyone else outside Shelagh’s family and they felt compelled to share it with the world.

It’s important you read it because, in reading the story of Shelagh, you start to realize how wonderfully rich are the lives of the scores of faceless people we pass each day on the bus or subway. You also see the importance and the fragility of your own life through her story”

I Want You To Do Two things

A few months ago I published an article entitled: Differentiate Your Funeral Home: Reinvent The Obituary The article featured a video panel of the leading obit writers of several of the world’s largest newspapers discussing the need to reinvent the obituary in order to recover relevance and preserve the practice. As you well know many newspapers are hanging by an economic thread. This story by the Toronto Star exemplifies this quiet but growing trend…a trend all funeral homes should be leading not following. So, first view the video by clicking the link above. It will help you see where this is going.

Feel free to read the Forbes version of the original article above but, Second, I urge you to go to the original source at The Toronto Star to see how they have incorporated some amazing interactive graphics. Click here Toronto Star. I bet you could do this on your own website.

Here is what I would do:

When I published the original article on reinventing the obituary I asked John Callaghan to look into how he could help funeral directors do just that. I would contact him and find out what he has accomplished. I would approach my local paper and negotiate with them to highlight a local ordinary citizen in the way the Toronto Star did at least monthly, weekly if I could. It would be exclusive under my banner and logo. If they didn’t cooperate I would simply do it on my own website.

One last thought: It is impossible to produce an obit of this type coincident with the service. Why does it have to be? There is no reason it can’t be published a few weeks later…ON YOUR WEBSITE. If you feel you have to do it for free then only include it in your high end burial and cremation services. PUT A PRICE ON IT FOR ALL OTHER SERVICES.

CONTACT John Callaghan here: John Callaghan

DISCLAIMER: I asked John to take on this project because he has the ability to do it. There is no economic relationship between us. I simply respect his work.

Tomorrow we will resume our regularly scheduled post on a new pricing strategy

A Broken Business Model: Wringing More Money Out of Your Best Customers Is Not Sustainable

Written by Alan Creedy on July 23, 2012. Posted in The Creedy Commentary. 3 Comments on A Broken Business Model: Wringing More Money Out of Your Best Customers Is Not Sustainable

This image illustrates so well the folly of our more than century old pricing model. All was good until the market changed about 30 years ago. Because we didn’t know anything else (and neither did our advisors) our response to the growth in cremation has been to beef up our burial prices and focus on merchandising with the resulting effect that we are only wringing more money out of our best customers. And our best customers are saying “ENOUGH!”

Beginning with the global economic debacle of 2008 the cremation rate has accelerated. The hardest hit have been (surprisingly) the rural communities where cremation has in, some instances, jumped from the mid 20% to as much as 50%. One of my funeral home consulting clients recently told me:

“It’s not that my families want cremation…they just can’t afford burial.”

The Fault Is In The Pricing Strategy

For more than 100 years the standard pricing strategy in business has been what is known as “Cost-Led Pricing.” And it is this pricing strategy that has prevailed in DeathCare since the Mid 1800’s. Only last month I read an article in one of our trade journals once again advocating this outmoded strategy.

Cost-Led Pricing works this way:

To calculate your prices using this method is relatively easy. You only need to know a few things:

Your overhead
Your anticipated call volume
The amount of profit you want to make
Your marginal contribution on merchandise sales.

So, let’s pretend we have a 100 call funeral home that has merchandise sales that look like this:

Units Cost Markup Retail Revenue

Caskets 75 $1,100 2.5 $2,750 $206,250

Vaults 50 $800 1.85 $1,480 $74,000

Mdse rev $280,250

cost of sales

Caskets $82,500

Vaults $40,000

Total COS ($122,500)

Contribution To OH $157,750

Once we have estimated our merchandise contribution to overhead we tote up our budgeted overhead and tack on our hoped for profit to determine overhead plus profit.

OverHead $445,000

Desired profit $50,000

Overhead Plus Desired Profit $495,000

Less contribution from Mdse sales ($157,750)

Overhead and profit less mdse contrib. $337,250

Calls 100

Full Service Charge $3,372.50

Our final steps are to reduce the overhead plus profit number by the estimated net contribution from merchandise sales to calculate an estimated net amount to be recovered from our service charges and then to divide that by the estimated call volume for the coming year.

Here’s The Problem:

When I work with clients I ask rhetorical questions to help them start thinking for themselves. In this case my question would be: Who is missing from this equation? But I won’t do that to you.

If it’s not obvious to you the problem here is that the consumer is excluded from the conversation and consumers are never excluded from the conversation...for long. They always have a vote and right now they are voting with their checkbook.

Worse is the second problem:

Cost-Led Pricing strategy enables you to ignore the Sins of a bloated overhead and assume the unconscious laziness that avoids the constant search for the necessary efficiencies all businesses must continually seek.

Next week: I will share with you the alternative pricing strategy and how it will enable you to build a veritable competitive fortress. The Cost-Led Pricing strategy in America Started to die in the 1970’s and is now pretty much dead in the majority of consumer facing industries EXCEPT DeathCare. For many DeathCare practitioners the transition will be a major challenge. Perhaps THE major challenge of their lives but it is a transition we all must make.

A Strange Bathroom Encounter–A Rite of Passage

Written by Alan Creedy on July 16, 2012. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, Leadership. 2 Comments on A Strange Bathroom Encounter–A Rite of Passage

It was between sessions at an NFDA convention and busy in the bathroom. An older gentleman approached me and asked brusquely, “Are you Alan Creedy?” Given his demeanour, for a moment, I wasn’t sure whether to say yes or run. I finally said yes. What he said next made me wish he had chosen a different venue.

“I Just want to thank you for making a man of my son.” he said.

You could have heard a pin drop. Now that we had the rapt attention of everyone in that room I was definitely wishing i was somewhere else. I managed to say, “Sir, I don’t believe we have met.” He introduced himself and the facts behind his odd statement fell into place.

His son had been a client of mine and unwittingly over a period of time he had built up the courage to fire his father. I had little to do with it. Ironically, that was the very action that his father had been waiting for. Dad and Mom turned over the keys and headed to Florida. But if I left the story there it would seem far too easy.

My client’s story is all too typical. Second generation, brought up in the family business, Dad and Mom unwilling to loosen the reigns to let him take over, underpaid and overworked, frustrated with the lack of progress and concerned over whether he would even have a future by the time he was able to make the inevitable changes he saw coming.

I remember 30 years ago when my cohorts were wrestling with their mothers, fathers, uncles and aunts over succession issues. “We’ll never do this to our kids,” they said. Well now it’s their turn and I find they’re worse.

Not long ago I mediated with yet another friend and his 37 year old son. About half way through the conversation I turned to dad and said, “George (not his name), how old were you when you took over from your dad?” (I was there, you see, and I knew the answer) He took a sudden interest in his shoes and finally blustered, “Well…well, I was 34…but it was different then.”

Through my funeral home consulting practice I have come to know a lot of these new 30 and 35 and 40 year old “up and comers.” In my opinion, they are really pretty good. Maybe better in a lot of ways than we were. There comes a time to pass the baton.

Why do we so stubbornly resist? I think it is a lot of things. Mostly fear. In some cases we fear a loss of relevancy. We have so much invested in our career we don’t know what our role will be without it. In other cases it is the insecurity of not being in control. And in still others it is simply the stubborn selfishness of age.

Today, I see a lot of parent/owners who really want to do the right thing. But by hanging on too long they are effectively neutering their own kids and crippling the future of their business.

In addition to the make-a-man-out-of-my-son story here are two others I like:

“I decided at 35 there wasn’t room for both of us. I was terrified. I had never done anything else for a living but I wasn’t going to live like this. I walked into his office and said: ‘Dad, there isn’t room for both of us. Either you go or I do.’ He just stared at me and didn’t say a word. I turned around and left and went back to work. I started looking for a job. A week later he walked in and said ‘Your mother and I have talked and your right. It’s yours.'”

“Our dad always told us we could own the business and receive compensation from it IF and only if we actually worked in it. I was the only one who wanted to work in it. So I bought in and when he retired he sold me the rest of it. He took care of my other brothers and sisters in his estate but they weren’t allowed to own or benefit from the business without working in it.”

Well, I bet you thought this story was going to be about something else. Gotcha!!! But if you have children over 30 in the business you need to be thinking succession and, like it or not, you are one day going to have to get out of their way. It’ll happen any way…one way or another. If it were me I would do it while I was still alive so I had something to be proud of.

Expert opinion: What To Say When They Say “Dad Wanted Nothing”

Written by Alan Creedy on July 9, 2012. Posted in The Creedy Commentary, Practitioner Forum: Insights and Ideas. 1 Comment on Expert opinion: What To Say When They Say “Dad Wanted Nothing”

A few years ago I was meeting with a husband and wife who operated a very successful funeral home. Like most successful people they were always looking for new ideas to help them stay in front of their competitors. To protect their privacy I’ll call them Bill and Jane.

Over the course of our two days together we talked about a wide range of marketing topics. At one point Bill was asking my advice on his arrangement process. It seemed that he kept running into the same obstacles over and over again; families that said that Dad didn’t want a funeral, families that said they were told not to make a fuss, families that said they weren’t going to do anything.

We launched into a lively conversation at his white board where we mapped out the entire arrangement process. The board was filled with opening statements, responses, transitions and closing statements. If they say…here’s what you say….if they say that…switch to this…and so forth.

After watching us for about 30 minutes Jane started laughing hysterically. Here’s how the next few moments played out…..

Jane: “you guys are really over complicating things”

Bill: “what are you talking about this is brilliant?”

Me: “Jane, what do you say when someone says Dad didn’t want a funeral?”

Jane: “I ignore the men and turn to the eldest female in the room and ask her how she feels about that. We talk about her feelings, and the feelings of the other women in the family, and then I help her find a compromise.”

Me: “What do you mean by compromise?”

Jane: “The women always want to do something but they feel that their hands are tied. Their loved one said they didn’t want a funeral and they want to honor their wishes. But they still want to do something so they really just need a new option.”

I was curious about how effective her approach was so we checked some of their performance reports. Of the 5 people making arrangements at their funeral home she had the highest average revenue. In fact, the next closest was 25% behind her.

Bill and I had approached the problem from our male perspective. We had looked at the arrangement meeting as a negotiation and had carefully planned each step in the process.

Jane, on the other hand, approached the arrangement meeting as a conversation that included her and the other women in the room. The focus of the meeting was not the social security number or the obituary information or even the events surrounding the death. The focus was on feelings….a topic that makes most men run for the safety of the nearest Home Depot tool aisle.

As I mentioned earlier this experience happened a few years ago. Since then I have studied over twenty books on the topic of marketing to women. My favorite is a book called Why She Buys by Bridget Brennan, which I highly recommend.

In today’s society women control the vast majority of purchase decisions, especially when it concerns a family event (like a funeral).

Gentlemen, if you disagree with me go home and have a conversation with your wife then call your sister to confirm. They will straighten you out.

If you want to see an immediate improvement in your business you do not need to go to an expensive academy to learn new arrangement techniques. You also do not need to bring in an expensive consultant (yes, that includes me). You only need to do three things.

Accept that women are the decision makers.
Learn how to have a conversation with them on their terms.
Help them balance the wishes of their loved one with the needs of the family.

Learning how to communicate with women will definitely help your funeral home business and it may even help your home life as well. In my own study of this topic I have learned to be more comfortable talking about emotions but I’m also careful to spend adequate time at Home Depot just to keep things in balance.

John Callaghan is owner of Funeral Success.com. His Blog is one of my favorites and I strongly recommend you subscribe